discussion Dont blow the br ........ Dohhhhh ......

[toto]

My placemaker for my first diorama attempt.

I'll get a couple of photo's up of my initial progress and then update as I go. I have a few idea's as to what I want and some of the techniques that I will use but go easy on me ..... I am only an enthusiastic beginner. Things can only get better.

Anyway ..... to set the scene .... blighty and the americans have only really started to progress into Nazi occupied terittory and are progressing towards Berlin ...... somewhere in Europe. And what better a way to move forward ...... than to blow a bridge out ..... before you get the chance to cross it ..... this is the stuff of carry on films.

Be sure to follow.

Toto

 

[toto]

So .... this weekend .... once I get home , I will hopefully be carving some foam in order to get the height commited for planting a couple of blown out bridge sections from Fields of Glory.

As it is the central theme, then once it is sort of placed, it will allow other features to be worked into place. Think cobblestone roads and buildings and vehicles.

I will try and geta couple of progress photo's up on the forum maybe by say saturday evening. Things are in their infancy so dont go expecting too much just quite yet.

Toto

 

[toto]

A little more progress tonight.

Received the missing part from my Fields of Glory blown out bridge kit. So first job was to get that assembled .... or should I say .... glued together using " sticks like shit " another form of " no nails ".

Meanwhile .... whilst waiting for that to set " tomorrow sometime " I started on the canal bank walls.

I'm jumping between mediums here because the bridge is cast plaster kits, the canal banks are scribed polystyrlene and my cobble roads are going to be using plaster cast moulds.

There is a little bit of lost time as you move berween mediums, waiting for things to dry before you can start on another etc but I'm finding it slow but therapeutic.
Ineed to get my Diorama Debri street paviours out in order to cast my canal paviours. The downside of this is that I only have one such mould to it will take forever to cast enough slabs ... unless I buy another couple of moulds. ....... booooooooooo. We'll see.

I Will as stated before, try and get a couple of pictures up tomorrow ......

Thats my plan.

Hope you can stay awake long enough.

Cheers

Toto

 

[toto]

OK,

a couple of images from where I am up to on my Diorama. things are not going to plan ..... there's a surprise.



The issue is I've lost a lot of space on each side of the embankment due to forgetting to take into consideration the slope.

On the wider side I envisaged a two way cobbled road with enough room for a bombed out building from which to hide Gerry. On the narrower side I though I'd have enough room for a road to take a small American or British infantry vehicle with some troops to drop off and take up shooting positions ...... more of a pipe dream I think.




At least its level ........So ..... do I abandon or make the most of it since I have used half a ton of insulation.

I think I'll keep going and see where my mind takes me.

back later with some inspiration I hope.

cheers

toto.

 

[toto]

OK ..... I'm back ..... yes already.

I had originally been going to grass the embankment but though ..... they are steep ..... how would the grass have been maintained ....

I'm now thinking of building rock outcrops from the canal footpath level up to half way up the top tier of foam then a smaller less inclined grass embankment. ..... Thoughts please.

I am going to cast some plaster rocks to play around with whilst I await suggestions .... wont do any harm to play around and stops me from giving up on the board to easily. I still like the idea of the blown bridge which was the main idea. lets see how this pans out.

I try to make the most of weekends as I work away from home monday to friday.

cheers for now.

toto

 

[toto]

Another shot with the bridge ends jammed in place .....




and another ....



lots of levelling and filling to be done but I think I should maybe paint the bridge sides and underneath first as access will be short once they are glued in.

toto

 

[Steven000]

Looking good so far, have fun cheers

 

[toto]

Thanks,

I see issues happening due to insufficient measuring in advance and as a result some serious compression and possibly omissions of what I wanted to include.

So ...... as a result .... I'm considering whether to continue or whether to abandon and start again. ..... not decided.

I'm back to the drawing board for now before committing any further time or materials to it.

I have all week to think about it as I am back up to Dounreay for another week of work tomorrow.

All will be revealed soon.

Toto

 

[scottie3158]

Looks interesting I will follow along.

 

[toto]

Well I'll be back home on Friday and possibly back in the mancave on Friday night .... time to progress hopefully.

Meanwhile, I have not been letting the grass grow under my feet as Ihave been building a german 1/35th scale PAK 40 cannon.

This should fit nicely on the diorama and help me further to gain a bit more scale and perspective as I continuethe diorama build. Not to mention the opportunity to get my air brush out in anger for the first time.

Roll on friday.

Toto

 

[papa 695]

It’s looking very interesting, and coming along very nicely

 

[toto]

Made it home tonight ...... late ..... quick visit to the shed to see where I had to pick up.
So tomorrow it looks like a bit primer to a few surfaces, some plasterwork and a mix of other things , just trying to pull things together a bit.

Once you put certain things in place it blocks access to do others .... a level head needed .... even at this stage of the game.

Toto

 

[toto]

Spent some time in the shed today ..... in fact ...... a lot of time in the shed today.

Not a huge amount to show for it. Most of the time casting more cobble stones and trying out the new Pavior moulds that arrived from Diorama Debri.

I must admit I had my doubts about the potential success rate with the pavious casts but I should not have worried. A 100% success rate. No wasters at all.

The paviours are mighty thin and delicate but I used Crystal R casting plaster which is specifically formulated as a harder cast for more delicate castings.

I use Herculite for most other more robust castings.i'll post a couple of photo's up of the various casts that I have been consentrating on shortly.

I als9 looked out my airbrush compressor and done a search on the internet as to how to set the air pressure again. Its been a long time since I last used it and even at that, I only used it a couple of times with a mixed bag of results ..... practice makes perfect though as they say .....

A photo or three later.

Cheers for now

Toto.

 

[toto]

OK ...... as promised .... a couple or three photo's .... not much to look at really but here goes anyway .



the above are precast concrete lintels ..... with a fag packet to give a sense of scale. They come in various thicknesses.



next up are the concrete paviors .... both full size 6 x 4's and the half size version.





next is the concrete or brick wall coping stones .......




Then ..... the cobble stones which I have cast in various colours but mainly in grey or shades of grey.Even the garish buff coloured can come in handy once weathered down a bit ..... and just for scale .....



pretty damn small .... especially if you were to be laying a whole road ....... like me.

and the last for now .....



various versions of kerb stones available in straight, curved and cheeses for forming corners etc. there are 3 lengths of straights and two curve radius sizes.

I have brick wall sections and some other architectural detail casts as well that would let you build complete buildings.

As you can see from the last image, the surfaces are textured on all sides apart from the underside to allow for fixing etc.

great products.

hope the above has been of interest. probably more so once the end product starts coming through.

cheers for now

toto

 

[toto]

Big apology coming up ..........

I have decided to abandon the started diorama board for a couple of reasons.

1. I didn,t provide timber bracing to the platform and as a result it is warping all over the place which is no good if you intend to use plaster as one of your building mediums. It will only crack with any future movement.

2. I realised part way into the build that the platform was not big enough for what I wanted to include. I was being too optimistic as to how much I could fit in with the result I was compressing things too much. I realised this a couple of weeks ago but decided to keep going on the hope I could make it work. However I realised that if I was still unhappy with it further down the build, it would just be wasting more materials so I decided to bite the bullet early doors and start again.

I will simplify the build on a slightly larger board but still try and retain enough highlights to keep it interesting. I love working with the diorama debri casting medium so a significant cobble road will remain. I still want to include a realistic explosion effect and will probably change this from a blown bridge to a bombed out road and possibly buildings. { so the plaster bridge cast will be temporarily shelved for now )

I want this to retain an element of a street by street type battle so maybe a machine gun nest or two will be introduced.

Again apologies for the false start but rather realise that now than further into the build.

here is a couple of pictures of the new { stronger } baseboard with softwood strengthening .... glued and screwed. Courtesy of a visit to B and Q earlier this morning. Just awaiting more board insulation to be delivered on Thursday It should allow me to get up to speed again next weekend.



much more robust effort ....



well strapped out




Glued and screwed.

I think the title of this build is now a bit unaligned so I am not sure what the mods want me to do. Start a new thread, rename this one { once I come up with a name } or carry on with this one regardless.

Again many apologies for the hasstle.

I shall try and redeem myself somehow.

cheers for now

Toto.

 

[John Race]

That's for you to decided ToTo , but I could see where this was supposed to go. Great castings and you have done so much work on the basic design I think you should carry on.
Not the first time I have given up on a dio so can under stand how you feel

 

[toto]

Thanks John.

My problem is .... once the doubt is cast ..... I know my heart wont be in it.

I think { as usual for me } ambition out run reality as to what I could squeeze in. I will maybe save the bridge for a smaller diorama in the future and keep this one a bit simpler to let me use it as a test piece with which to hone my skills. I think there will still be enough points of visual interest and loads of small individual talking points to be had.

I think when folks see what will go into this , they wont be too disappointed. I'll look forward to hopefully having you follow my journey.

cheers

toto

 

[John Race]

Will follow ToTo.